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Count. Heav'n blefs him! Farewel, Bertram.

[Exit Countess.

Ber. [To. Hel.] The beft wishes, that can be forg'd' in your thoughts, be fervants to you! Be comfortable to my mother, your mistress, and make much of

her.

Laf. Farewel, pretty lady, you must hold the credit of your father. [Exeunt Bertram and Lafeu,

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S CE NE II.

Hel. Oh, were that all! I think not on my father;

And these great tears grace his remembrance more,
Than thofe I fhed for him. What was he like?
I have forgot him. My imagination
Carries no favour in it, but my Bertram's.
I am undone; there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I fhould love a bright partic'lar ftar,
And think to wed it; he is fo above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Muft I be comforted, not in his fphere.
Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself;
The hind, that would be mated by the lion,
Muft die for love. 'Twas pretty, tho' a plague,
To fee him every hour; to fit and draw
His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table: heart, too capable
Of every line and trick of his fweet favour!
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Muft fanctify his relicks. Who comes here!

6- and collateral light.] collateral for reflected. i. e. in the radiance of his reflected light; not in his fphere, or direct light. Milton ufes the word, in the fame fense, speaking of the Son, Book 10. v. 86. Of high collateral Glory. B 4

Enter

Enter Parolles,

One, that goes with him: I love him for his fake, "And yet I know him a notorious liar;

"Think him a great way fool, folely a coward; "Yet these fix'd evils fit fo fit in him,

"That they take place, when virtue's fteely bones "Look bleak in the cold wind;" full oft we fee 7 Cold wisdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.

SCENE

Par. Save you, fair Queen.

Hel. And you, Monarch.

Par. No.

Hel. And no.

III.

Par. Are you meditating on virginity?

Hel. Ay: you have fome & ftain of foldier in you; let me ask you a queftion. Man is enemy to virginity, how may we barricado it against him?

Par. Keep him out.

Hel. But he affails; and our virginity, tho' valiant, in the defence yet is weak: unfold to us fome warlike refistance.

Par. There is none: man, fetting down before you, will undermine you, and blow you up.

Hel. Blefs our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up ! Is there no military policy, how virgins might blow up men?

Par. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up: marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lofe

7 Cold wifdom waiting on fuperfluous folly.] Cold for naked; as fuperfluous for over-cloath'd. This makes the propriety of the Antithefis.

8 Stain of foldier] fain for colour. Parolles was in red, as appears from his being afterwards called red-tail'd humble bee.

your

your city. It is not politick in the commonwealth of nature, to preferve virginity. Lofs of virginity is rational increafe; and there was never virgin got, 'till virginity was firft loft. That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once loft, may be ten times found: by being ever kept, it is ever loft; 'tis too cold a companion: away with't. Hel. I will ftand for't a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

Par. There's little can be faid in't; 'tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity, is to accufe your mother; which is moft infallible difobedience. As he, that hangs himself, fo is a virgin: 'virginity murthers itself, and fhould be buried in highways out of all fanctified limit, as a desperate 'offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese; confumes itself to the very 'paring, and fo dies with feeding its own ftomach. • Befides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of felf-love, which is the moft prohibited fin in the canon. Keep it not, you cannot chufe but lofe by't. Out with't; within ten years it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not much the worse. Away with't. Hel. How might one do, Sir, to lose it to her own liking?

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9 He, that hangs himself, is a Virgin:] But why is he that hangs himself a Virgin? Surely, not for the reafon that follows, Virgi nity murders itself. For tho' every Virgin be a Suicide, yet every Suicide is not a Virgin. A word or two are dropt, which introduced a comparison in this place; and Shakespear wrote it thus, As he, that hangs himself, so is a Virgin.

And then it follows naturally, Virginity murders itself. By this emendation, the Oxford Editor was enabled to alter the Text thus,

He that hangs himself is like a Virgin.

And this is his ufual way of becoming a Critick at a cheap expence.

Par.

Par. Let me fee. Marry, ill, to like him that ne'er it likes. 'Tis a commodity will lofe the glofs with lying. The longer kept, the lefs worth: off with't, while 'tis vendible. Answer the time of requeft. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly futed, but unfutable; just like the brooch and the toothpick, which we wear not now your date is better in your pye and your porridge, than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears; it looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear: it was formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you any thing with it?

Hel. Not my virginity yet.

There fhall your mafter have a thousand loves,
A mother, and a miftrefs, and a friend,
[A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
A guide, a goddess, and a fovereign,
A counfellor, a traitress, and a dear;
His humble ambition, proud humility;
His jarring concord; and his difcord dulcet ;
His faith, his fweet difafter; with a world
Of pretty fond adoptious christendoms,
That blinking Cupid goffips. Now fhall he-]

1 A Phoenix, Captain, &c.] The eight following lines between the hooks, I am perfuaded is the nonfenfe of fome foolish conceited Player. What put it into his head was Helen's faying, as it fhould be read for the future,

There fhall your Mafter have a thousand loves;

A Mother, and a Mistress, and a Friend.

I know not, what he shall God fend him well.

Where the Fellow finding a thousand loves spoken of, and only three reckoned up, namely a Mother's, a Mistress's, and a Friend's, (which, by the way, were all a judicious Writer could mention; for there are but these three fpecies of love in Nature) he would help out the number, by the intermediate nonfenfe: and, because they were yet too few, he pieces out his loves with enmities, and makes of the whole fuch finished nonfenfe as is never heard out of Bedlam.

I

I know not, what he fhall

The court's a learning place

Par. What one, i'faith?

God fend him well!

and he is one

Hel. That I wish well-'tis pity-
Par. What's pity?

Hel. That wifhing well had not a body in't,
Which might be felt; that We the poorer born,
Whose baser stars do fhut us up in wifhes,
Might with effects of them follow our friends:
And fhew what we alone muft think, which never
Returns us thanks.

Enter Page.

Page. Monfieur Parolles,

My lord calls for you.

[Exit Page.

Par. Little Helen, farewel; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

Hel. Monfieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable ftar.

Par. Under Mars, 1.

Hel. I efpecially think, under Mars:

Par. Why under Mars?

Hel. The wars have kept you fo under, that you muft needs be born under Mars.

Par. When he was predominant.

Hel. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
Par. Why think you

fo?

Hel. You go fo much backward, when you fight. Par. That's for advantage.

Hel. So is running away, when fear propofes fafety: but the compofition, that your valour and fear makes in you, is a virtue of a good ming, and I like the wear well.

2 is a virtue of a good WING, and I like the wear well.] The integrity of the metaphor directs us to Shakespear's true reading; which, doubtlefs, was a good MING, i. e. mixture, compofition, a word common to Shakespear and the writers of this age; and taken from the texture of cloth. The M was turn'd the wrong way at the prefs, and from thence came the blunder.

Par.

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